clean rob

Just wondering - where is this information from? Is there somewhere that I can find TWC ratings? I'd be interested to look at that if there is.

According to wwe.com, it's not Royal Rumble style, just a regular battle royal with the following competitors, who I have handily grouped: FAVOURITES: Triple H (Obviously.) Chris Jericho (It's his Raw the following week, he's a good bet to feud with Trips between now and Mania, and he's very over right now. ) OUTSIDE CHANCES: Batista (We've seen it teased, he's in Evolution...it'd be too early, but it could happen.) Chris Benoit (Recent history with HHH, who might want his singles win back soon) Edge (Hanging around the ME scene, made it clear he wants the title) Gene Snitsky (If they're going for a SWERVE~! winner, this is my bet.) Ric Flair (We all know HHH loves Flair - and it does open up some interesting storyline possibilities.) NO-HOPERS: Christian Eugene Jonathon Coachman Maven Rhyno Robert Conway Rosey Shelton Benjamin Steven Richards Sylvain Grenier Tyson Tomko Val Venis Viscera William Regal Agree/disagree? It's a shame that out of 20 men there's just one I'd give a decent chance of taking Trips' title. And I don't really expect that to happen either. Still, here's hoping I eat my words and Stevie Richards gets the 7-day reign he deserves.

Meh, I never liked watching the early morning Smackdown anyhow. They always cut stuff out and replaced it with tons of filler. Besides, 10am is too early for a beer. I see your point though - sucks for people without Sky Sports, I guess.

Good stuff, about time we had Raw live over here. This sort of makes up for the lack of free PPVs we're going to get from now on. I can't see me actually staying up to watch Raw at 2am, but at least now we can tape it and watch it on Tuesday.

Ha! Good interview there, they should get some more time for on-air skits. Thanks for posting that Matt.

I'd be interested to hear what possible reason Holly had for apparently beating the shit out of Dupree to such a degree. He may be well known for stiffing/sandbagging rookies, but this sounds completely different. Bottom line as I see it: it's completely unprofessional and Holly should be disciplined. I'd like to see the WWE go all the way and fire him, but that's just because I don't like him.

The only ones of those that I can actually recall are 'Crossing Borders' and 'Summertime Blues'...and that's because they were both exceptionally bad PPV themes. The rest, I couldn't even make an attempt at humming, and I must have heard them all a fair few times. The last decent one was was 'St. Anger' for SS '03 IMO.

That would be a nice twist, plus it would both tie in nicely with the interaction between Orton and Flair in the run-up to Taboo Tuesday, and keep the HHH/Orton feud ticking along nicely without yet another in-ring meeting between the two. I'm not sure I'd want to see Flair actually winning though. Of course Orton will probably just book HHH in a bra and panties match to embarrass him, or something equally silly.

If you actually look at the bump that Burchill's opponent takes during the C4, it's not actually that hard - just a front flip onto your back. I'd go so far as to say that virtually the entire roster would be able to take it. And I don't see any reason that the WWE would make Burchill lose the rolling samoan drop either. It's the air raid crash that will definitely go, probably along with the SSSP sadly. Still, I'm definitely interested to see what comes of all this. edotherocket - are you saying the Lesnar didn't live up to the hype? Were you genuinely disappointed with how he turned out?

Good idea. I don't want him bulking up too much though, it'll end up reducing his speed and agility.

WWE Crusierweight Fatal Fourway: Spike Dudley vs. Chavo Guerrero vs. Billy Kidman vs. Rey Mysterio Winner: Kidman, so that he'll have both Chavo and London gunning for his title (and this horrible Spike reign ends). Intercontinental Championship: Shelton Benjamin vs. Christian Winner: Shelton. He needs a few successful title defences. Christian losing won't hurt him at all. The Undertaker vs. Heidenreich Winner: Taker. Pfft. Women's World Championship: Trish Stratus vs. Lita Winner: Trish. I'm actually thinking they're going all the way to Mania before the big face win. RAW Survivor Series Match: Team Helmsley vs. Team Orton Winner: Team Helmsley. 4 HHH vs. face title matches in 4 weeks would be blowing a lot in a very short space of time. SmackDown! Survivor Series Match: Team Guerrero vs. Team Angle Winner: Team Guerrero. If Team Helmsley goes over, the faces win this one. WWE Championship Match: John "Bradshaw" Layfield vs. Booker T Winner: JBL. Then Booker wins at Armageddon to transition to Angle. Unless, UNLESS, they actually put this as the ME (I just can't see this happening though) in which case Booker wins this Sunday.

Cool. Burchill was one of the three guys I named as a pick in that 'who should WWE pick up after the firings' thread a week or so ago. Provided he doesn't get his moveset reduced too badly, he'll at least make for some fun spots. Whether he can pick up the WWE heavyweight style like Lesnar did remains to be seen, but I'm hoping for good things to come out of this. FYI, the C4 is the standing moonsault rock bottom (standing one man spanish fly?) he does.

Doesn't he do a standing SSP and the Split Legged senton? Indeed he does, amongst other spots which men of his size don't traditionally do - standing moonsaults, somersault sentons over the turnbuckle to the outside etc. (his moonsault literally goes from one corner of the ring to the other.) He's not much of a worker as of the last time I saw him, but if he could learn to put a decent match together, I see him as the next Lesnar. At the very least he'd be a fun spot machine.

Release: Garrison Cade & The Bashams (I'd love for Holly to get fired, but he does at least get a reaction off crowds) Hire: Samoa Joe, Abyss, Burchill. 3 guys hoss enough to be pushed well in the WWE who I would actually want to see in the ring.

This isn't exactly the 'finer points' of selling. It's selling at it's most basic (you know, the stuff even RVD can do - take a move, make it look like it hurt more than it really did). It should not require any training at all to be able to do this. What a bunch of idiots.

Huh? How does that work? The whole story sounds a bit weird to me. There's probably a fair bit of truth in there, but i'm willing to bet that this isn't the complete truthful story. Edit: Bah, beaten to it.

I'd rather see him do a wrist clutch varation. But your idea is pretty nifty also. Either way, he seriously needs a named finisher now that the Dragon Whip has been toned down and reduced to a signature spot.

Well why doesn't he then? His match with UT was passable I guess, but that was all Taker IMO. I have yet to see any display of charisma from the man, and I his moveset is just so very very bleh. He's like a black Garrison Cade (alright he's not that bad... but still.) I don't want him anywhere near any titles - he should be getting squashed by Akio on a weekly basis. Benjamin, on the other hand - big push for that man please. And a decent finisher too.

Is he really? I always thought he was a Samoan. Guess you learn something new every day, thanks!

Well you certainly were when you said that. Anyway, I might be getting confused here, but Rock is of Samoan descent... so why would that make him African-American? Does his family include a lot of African lineage?

Quick calculations: Sky value pack plus Sky Sports channels (Raw, SD! + 8 PPV's/year) = £31/month extra PPV's = £15 each. I figure that as £432 a year, or approx. $769. So 'free' is a bit of a misnomer really.

Say what you will about him, but I'd love to see Nash take Lawler's colour commentary position on Raw. Just randomly coming out with 'I love head' during a match would be 100 times funnier than anything Lawler's come up with in the past 5 years.

Yes, and I'm not all surprised by the low(ish) amount of votes for the perennial smark favourites. Just going by crowd reaction I would have thought HHH and HBK would have both performed better.

I've met this guy. Possibly at Wrestlemania XX. Ha! I have to say I'm fairly surprised at the margin by which Taker has beat HBK and Trips. I would have thought they'd all be around the same.

Ah balls. Anyone have any more details on this, will a deal with Sky be running out or something? Seems a bit of a daft time to be doing that now that all of us Sky subscribers have the wrestling channel.